MAY POLE
When did “May Pole Dances” go out of style?
I’ve just missed them, but I can remember when it was a great event of every
Spring time. It resembled the concept of debutantes being introduced to society with a
strictly controlled “Debutante’s Ball” held at the town finest facility.
As I remember it, the city actually installed several twelve or fourteen-foot used
telephone poles in the park area and at the various school grounds each spring to meet
the forthcoming need. All the young girls - pre-debs, I suppose they might be called - had
to have new, fluffy, long dresses made for the occasion and the bounds of color were
ignored. The May Pole dance was to be a bright, cheerful, gay dance and sometimes
they trucked in a piano which, with violin, at times provided the music. Most of the time,
however, the music was from a scratchy phonograph record with gaps of silence every
two to three minutes as the record was changed or reset at the beginning with a special
spine-tingling sideways scrr-aa-ttch!
The girls danced gracefully around the pole, each holding in hand a colorful band
of artificial paper, as we then called it, of a bright color. As they moved around the pole
the pole itself became then center of attention as a pattern began to appear when the
strands of colored paper were interwoven. School color predominated when it was
danced on school premises, but civic displays were a more colorful show. It was not as
easy at the might appear to have been, either. Everyone had to move exactly as
planned, weaving and interweaving - or the whole thing would be messed up beyond
fixing. In earlier times it involved both men and women and, often as teams of seven
couples, who took the steps needed, passing in front of or in back of the ladies as the
deign demanded. Many such shows completed the festive pole, then reversed the steps
and unwound the entire thing... all in celebration of the “Feast of Flora” as it was called in
England where it was all dedicated to the Goddess of Flowers.
Prior to the Roman occupation of the country the English contented themselves
with simple decorating tall poles with flowers and greenery of all kinds in elaborate designs
, but after the Romans left they became a dancing people at Pole time. The same sort of
thing grew in other nations as well usually among rural folk. The people in Switzerland
made it a three times per day affair. There was a staid, quiet version at sunrise, a less
formal show at noon and the evening consisted of dancing and merry making. A Robin
Hood character play an major role in some May Pole dances in England, as well.
Strict rules used to apply. The number of ribbons used must be divisible by four, for
instance. Try to do with less or more, and you’ve got yourself a badly botched May Pole
design.
A.L.M July 20, 2002 [c508wds]
